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Make Your Sleuth Reach for a Solution Creating a great mystery for readers depends on page turning events in your story. Create tension with challenges to your sleuth. Each time you create a challenge your reader keeps reading to see how your sleuth gets past a stopping point. That point may be a small as…
What is Foreshadowing? Foreshadowing is a literary device which is an advance hint of something that will happen later in the story. Foreshadowing creates an atmosphere of suspense as the reader continues on with expectations over later events. Foreshadow upcoming events with character dialogue, plot events, and changes in setting. Each method supplies a way…
Your Villain Right and Wrong The true pleasure of mystery readers is trying to discover who the killer is before your detective does. It’s the big puzzle and the draw of the genre. The challenge for you as a mystery writer is to create a villain who is understandable, relatable, and yet hidden until the…
The Victim Drives Your Mystery Although your sleuth is the hero of your mystery, the victim drives the story. The sleuth works throughout the story to uncover layers about the victim and the people (characters) involved in the victim’s life. In a traditional mystery, the puzzle pieces the sleuth uncovers are based on the relationship between…
The Counterintuitive Show Clues make up small details in your mystery that point the detective and the reader toward the villain. Detective, crime writer and mystery writing adviser, and Murder.con host Lee Lofland says, Tiny clues are often the ones that bring a case to a close. You want to plant those clues…
A Scene is a Revelation A story is a sequence of small moments. The first moment is make or break for getting your reader involved. Writing advice for beginning novelists can be confusing, like to start with a hook or show the hero’s everyday world. It’s easy to go way off track by starting with…
Discoveries I Made While Researching The Peach Widow Background Every story presents new research challenges when writing an historical mystery. For The Peach Widow I needed background on farm dogs, inheritance law, and natural poisons. My first challenge was looking for background on inheritance law concerning a second wife and children by a previous marriage. After…
The Hidden Backstory of a Mystery The villain and the victim are star characters in your mystery. As the story unfolds for the reader the focus is on your sleuth, but the relationship of these supporting characters are the crux of the resolution. In a traditional mystery the puzzle pieces the sleuth uncovers are based on…
The Best Sleuths Have Character Beginning mystery writers work hard to get their clues lined up, create suspicious characters, and overall construct a puzzle for the sleuth and readers to solve. It’s easy to forget that readers fall in love with characters. The most important character in your mystery is your sleuth. You want your…
Don’t Forget to Tell A Story Mystery readers love a good story. So when you are constructing your mystery, hiding clues, planting red herrings, or making a suspect look suspicious don’t forget the story comes first. The strongest stories have well-developed themes, engaging plots, suitable structure, memorable characters, well-chosen settings, and attractive style. For best…
